Spread spectrum transmission is rapidly gaining popularity in the field of communications due to its direct application to the problem of minimization of hostile detection and jamming. Several types of audio transceivers utilize pulse code modulated (PCM) type signals. These transceivers require equipment for determining which groups of bits from a stream of digital data which represents a PCM signal constitute individual data frames. Existing equipment for accomplishing this employs periodic transmission of a coded bit group that is used to synchronize system timing and data retrieval. Such equipment requires complex pattern recognition hardware at the receiver and results in a loss of a significant amount of data in the event of transmission error.